graphic storytelling studygroup

[Scorpion451]

I was really excited when Monkeybread told me about this forum, theres a lot to cover for the subject of how to make comics. When it comes down to it, comics (graphic novels, sequential art...I call them comics because its shorter) are their own form of media separate from pure writing or art- because you're having to seamlessly tie the things that you say in words and pictures, with the things between panels that you leave up to the imagination. And then theres the tricky parts like pacing the read of the page, creating action, and making interesting layouts! There's a TON of things that combine to make all of it work- take it from someone who's made just about every mistake possible and come out of it with a webcomic that is beginning to toe the line of respectable!

Seems like a lot of people are focusing on planning their stories right now, so I'll start there!

If you're doing what we're doing it is probably overkill. Comics don't really delve that far into complexity for the most part. I'm a fan of organisation as long as it doesn't constrain you from developing solutions to problems. A tool is just a tool, it's how you use it that matters.

Totally right- but the other side of the coin is that you can make the plot and world as complex as you want it to be, and as long as you explain it well you're only benefiting from it! You'd be surprised how much thought goes into a lot of comics not just in the indy sector, or the arthouse publishers like dark horse, but even in the industry giants like Marvel and DC- they may have standard formulas and templates for storylines and characters, but their most celebrated artists and authors have mastered the art of painting veritable Sistine Chapels inside the box by playing with the lore and rules for different series like toys. Of all the series though, the ones that people flock to almost always have something in common: intricate plots, lore, and worlds, that are revealed in an understandable and interesting way. (Or characters like She-hulk's cleavage. But thats a whole different discussion. XD)

To be frank, when it comes to comics, story trumps art, hands down. By comparison to what I'm able to pull off now, I wasn't much of an artist when I first started my comic- I was decent, and pulled off some interesting pages from time to time, but thats all you can say. But if the plot is strong and well written, it can carry the art a long way- and if you have both, well, thats when you really start to go from "cult following" to "underground hit". So focus on story first, for sure, but don't neglect the art either.


First bit of advice: Write a rough draft in COMIC FORMAT.
I wrote out the first three "books" of my comic this way at the start, and it was probably the smartest thing I ever did. I'm a free-form writer myself, and I hate outlines- but writing ahead is a whole different thing. Embrace that free-flow of ideas-its where the best writing comes from- but do it in a way that works for what you're trying to end up with: a comic!

I highly recommend writing out your plot in a pseudo-comic format: plan out dialogue and art simultaneously, and make sure that it can actually fit in the space you have assigned to it. If you can't sketch a vague thumbnail of what you want in a panel in a few seconds, write into the panel what goes there and move on to the next so that you don't loose your train of thought- I find that the space needed for the art and the space needed for the description in words of that art are pretty well related. The more details, characters, and actions you put in a panel, the more room it takes to describe it, so it can at least give you a rough idea of the space that panel needs to occupy on the page if you want it to read properly.

When you can manage to do it without breaking your story-telling groove, actually draw panels in a quickly in a gesture or silhouette style, and move on. Its a great way to practice drawing your characters recognizably over and over quickly, and to identify characters that you can't draw without a reference sheet and a protractor. If you find one of those, their design needs to be tweaked to something you can draw the first time, every time, in at least a rough way. Otherwise, the three-hundredth time you have start over a panel because you screwed them up AGAIN you will begin to consider killing off that character just so you don't have to draw them anymore. Trust me, I am not exaggerating. I finally broke down and did a "Darrin swap" style (google "bewitched", kiddos) redesign on one of my main characters to make her easier to draw after hitting this point- left some of my readers a little confused for a while, but ended the migranes and improved the comic in the long run. I should have done it at the start, though, when I was already having issues drawing her reliably and easily. Most important, though, is that having a plan of some sort for the art on a page, even a written description, is a godsend on days when you feel like you couldn't be creative if your life depended on it- it might not end up being your best page, but it will exist and you can always rework it later for the print edition. For those wanting to make a webcomic, skipping posting days is the fastest way to kill your comic- it kills your momentum, and frustrates your core readers who look forward to new pages.

 The other thing planning stuff out gives you a chance to do is edit. Forshadowing only becomes possible when you already know whats going to happen, for starters, so you almost have to do some planning to write with any sort of depth, even if its just setting yourself up for a punchline in a comic strip. I've rearranged entire chapters of my story to improve pacing, removed panels, pages, and entire scenes that I realized were rambling and/or unnessesary after I read through the rough draft a few times, expanded other scenes(sometimes from single panels to multiple pages!), and even had sudden inspirations for page layouts, characters, and sub-plots that have become some of my reader's favorites. I would never even have thought of some of those if I hadn't had the rough draft to tinker with, and spent the time I did revising it.

One of the biggest things writing ahead will save you from, though, is the dreaded "continutity break" or worse...the phrase "Because I wrote it that way". "BIWITW" makes your most trusting fans die a little inside, and is a rallying call for cynics to pelt you with rotten vegetable matter- especially because you have some fans who are both, which will net you hate mail. Readers WILL catch these things- there are more of them than there are of you, and fans nitpick endlessly on stuff like why vampires don't die under moonlight, if its reflected sunlight. Have answers ready, even if its a "because the properties of moondust filter out the particular wavelengths of the sun's rays that disrupt vampires magical energies" answer, or as a stopgap, directly address it in the universe as a "mystery of the universe" until you can think of something better. (sometimes fans will even do this for you, if you get lucky- fans noticed "the numbers" in Lost first, and the writers ran with it once it was pointed out, because it helped tie together some loose ends in the lore they were still pinning down at that point!)

Basically, fans love universes with some semblance of rules, even totally off the wall rules that you break by invoking "The One is not bound by the Matrix" type clauses. As long as there IS an explantion of some sort for why you can't feed the mogwai after midnight, and you stick to the rules you establish most of the time, you will have a fandom that will be willing to trust that you have some sort of plan for the story (most of the time). Think of the shows and stories that start violating their own rules too often or following them too closely, and you probably are thinking of a series that has jumped the shark. Obey your rules, but break them just enough to keep people guessing. This collection of rules and exceptions for your world is what you call an "invisible book"- the stuff that only the one or ones writing the story know, (or at least convincingly pretend to know) about that universe, and which is referenced only indirectly.-things like what Master Chief looks like with his helmet off, or what size unobtanium batteries you put in a lightsaber. I recomend you write anything significant, complicated, or particularly cool from your invisible book down, as the invisible versions are prone to getting forgotten and/or changing gradually. Having a detailed, visible-on-paper, invisible book is a good thing, if only because it can be a great source of ideas for bending the rules, like a trillionaire vampire spending vast amounts of money to buy, steal, or retrieve moon rocks with the goal of creating a waterproof moondust sunscreen so that he can move freely in daylight as long as he reapplies every 3 hours.

Hope that wall-o-text helps some people!
Next, I'm working on some stuff about page layout-
getting people to read your panels in the order you want, creating motion and action flow, how to work with panels without letting them run your comic, how to keep text from taking over completely... that sort of stuff.
I can't find the tutorial anymore, but when I first started I found one with a lot of the stuff I'm putting into the one I'm working on, and it was extremely useful. ^_^

[Amit Dutta]

Hey! Lots of very good advice in that post. I did a quick checklist in my head, and for the most part I think I'm doing things right by following most of your advice..phew. the thing about easy to draw characters was mentioned to me before so I will be sure to keep that in mind. I'm probably going to go through one or two rounds of feedback with the actual script, while I explore design and concepting. I've seen people struggle by not doing the work up front with story and I do not want to put myself in that position, it looks like a crap place to be, especially after you've started the art.
My story is a one off non serialised type affair, so I want to make sure the art is as unique, exciting and as good as I can at this time. Yes the story has to work and be interesting, but I'm focusing equally on both from the get go. That is why I intend to do enough style exploration to really nail the look beforehand so things don't evolve too much as I go. I know it may be hard to stop that happening, but if it does I will go back and fix things up.

Cool well welcome to the thread!

[gangstershit]

Scorpion-welcome to the group. You seem to have a great insight into webcomics. I on the other hand don't even know where to find the good ones. I'll have to read your post again, but for now my only response is on this one.

"story trumps art, hands down"
I have to disagree a little. I have enjoyed more comics with great art and a terrible story, than the other way around. Comics are obviously a visual experience. Comedy is the only exemption in my opinion. There is a certain level where mediocre art paired with a great story out sells great art with a mediocre story. But mediocre art still requires as much dedication to the fundamentals as great art. But without a foundation the story no matter how well written will fall apart.

[gangstershit]

finished?

[Amit Dutta]

I like the drawing the layout and how you've integrated the letter as the narration, but I'm gonna be real blunt here. I don't like the colours. That purple against the blue really doesn't do it for me. Perhaps use a complement for the surrounds? It's desert right? So maybe a burnt orange or something like that. It would pop against the blue. I'd also consider adding some accents of saturation just to give it a little more form and "punch"

The guy and the pumps need a cast shadow in the first panel and there's a bit of a tangent with his leg and the triangle inset. I'm not sure I like the messy flatting that comes outside of your lineart because it lends it an unfinished quality but not in a stylistic way. I'd also say clean up the lineart...in some cases it crosses over panel borders and it looks kinda sloppy.

Sorry man, I'm being harsh to be kind. I'd recommend you iterate this page until you land the exact final finish and style, before applying to the rest of your work. Just my opinion though.

[gangstershit]

Aint color theory a motherfucker. I was going for sepiatone, but yet it turned out purple in relation to the blue.


I'll ad some soft drop shadows, but I the lighting should be a little defused.

Tangents are an old habit that always haunts me. I used to love drawing tangents before I knew what they were. For some reason I was under the impression they tied the comp together.

[Amit Dutta]

I think sepia is a bit warmer and maybe a bit lighter in general than that hue you used. Have you maybe considered painting the whole thing with value only, then colorizing the whole lot to get that sepia effect. You can then go in with an overlay to selectively pop out just the blue bits. You could come up with something stylistically unique that way, kinda like those old fake coloured black and white photos. It would probably be quicker to churn them out because you wouldn't have to paint flats...just value.
www.oldphotosjapan.com/en/

You could even push that idea and make it look like old photos, with textures and scratches and weathering. Not sure if that fits your story but it might add to the post apocalyptic western theme.
You could also play with contrast between the figures and the background. Check this out. Love the contrast, but it's still a "real" scene. www.edinphoto.org.uk/0_MY_P_I/0_my_photographs_london_police_gz32_sepia_1024.jpg

[Scorpion451]

@Gangster and Monkeybread-Totally agree with both of you that the art matters a LOT, and you have to put a lot of work into it. But you have to change the way that you think about story- Story also trumps words. Story, plot, theme, metaphore...these are all totally seperate from the words you actually put on the page, and tie directly into your art direction and page designs. A story is what you are telling, and visual art and the written word are the two primary tools you have to convey it. You can't think of the two as separate from each other, either, because your third and most important tool is how they combine- thats why I stress so much working on both at the same time in the same place.

It might help to clear up my meaning, by pointing out that you can write long sequences spanning pages (or even entire chapters!) completely without dialogue or narration in a comic- in this case artwork takes on the full burden of conveying the story, and having a solid plan of how the scene(s) unfold (in the form of thumbnails, arrows showing yourself how the read and action on the page should flow, notes on details, symbolia (lightbulb over the head, that sort of thing), sound effects to use...) before starting to finalize anything becomes even more important! This is another one of those hard-won lessons for me- it saves you from a lot of wasted effort when you realize that the art you just spent all that time working on isn't really telling the story in an effective way, or that the dialogue doesn't really work with the way that you drew things. When that happens, you have to redo one or the other- in the worst cases where the whole thing just isn't telling the story well, sometimes both. Been there, done that, not fun.

I've seen some mediocre comics saved by great art or by great writing, but the best always focus on the story and telling it in the most effective way, and this leads the rest.

As far as good comics go, some ones that people here might want to check out as examples of well done or highly successful comics:
IMO, probably one of the best out there is White Noise. Brilliant comic in all aspects, and a case study for both comics and science fiction as high art. The author's been on a couple year sabatical due to financial problems, but she's slowly working her way back to regular postings now that she's in a better place money and stress wise.
I'm also a big fan of Odd Nauseam. Wonderful high weirdness, clever dialogue, and a clinic in what can be done with flat black and white art and minimal shading.

Ones people are pushing to get me to read that I've seen enough of to recommend:Goblins (this one is a great example of how a good story can carry the art and writing until they come up to par), El Goonish Shrive, Girl Genius and Romantically Apocalyptic (As soon as I get the chance to read through their archives the last two will probably join my faves list from what I've seen.)

[Amit Dutta]

Scorp, you're right there is no separating the two things...writing and art are what make up the medium, which is exactly why I don't think one necessarily trumps the other. I mean look at Moebius's Arzach: almost no story, no dialogue, but the art design was so amazing that it became a classic and influenced the entire industry.
It's basically a continuum that you plonk your work in. Scott McCloud's 'Understanding Comics' has a great way of thinking about the continuum. I really enjoyed it and it made me think differently about the possibilities of the medium.

Yes I completely agree that story is what keeps people interested and invested and coming back for more, but the art is what viscerally attracts you and draws you in, in the first instance. It is the combination of beauty and psychology, of insight and representation which is what I love about the medium. The possibilities for unique expression and storytelling are huge compared to other mediums. I don't believe it gets experimented with and tapped into as much as it could be. As with all commercially driven enterprise things can become formulaic and derivative quite quickly.

There just seems to be so much mostly badly drawn or "nicely drawn enough" anime-influenced style to a lot of web comics, and it kinda turns me off the story (perhaps unjustifiably). I love manga. The Japanese stuff. The best examples of black and white art in the genre that I've seen come from Manga. The stories and ideas (especially in the sci fi realm) tend to be pretty rad in manga compared to most things I've seen in western comics. The French seem to have avoided this though, they definitely have their own unique thing going there.

I don't spend a lot of time reading webcomics so I'm not speaking from any real experience but from what I've seen it seems that every other pre-teen who has artistic tendencies is writing a manga or anime influenced webcomic/graphic novel. The "genre" seems heavily overrepresented by fairly immature ideas and amateurish artwork which is not something I have really wanted to sift through to find the gems. Also by it's very nature of having to get a page out every week the art is generally what has to suffer, and this means there are very few webcomics that are actually very appealing from the art side of the continuum. Most of the good webcomics I've got into occasionally tend to have their own very unique art style which are mostly very very simple to fit the schedule. I haven't come across an anime themed one that I liked,yet.

I guess personally at the moment I am leaning more towards the experimental side of things than the "write a series, get it published/serialized" kinda approach myself. Not saying that's a bad thing by any means, but not what gets me excited right now. I'm more interested in the (relatively) quick exploration of both style and story. I like the idea of dipping into lots of different worlds, than being forced into one world for a huge period of time. It's the balance between staying fresh and stagnation that I think about on that front. I like intense amounts of focus, and then once I've explored the interesting themes and got what I wanted from it, moving on to something new. In a way I don't care about the reader at all...I'm telling the story to myself really: a very selfish way of looking at it...haha. As long as I enjoy it while I'm creating it, if it becomes a cool thing that people enjoy afterwards, well then, that's a huge bonus! :D

In terms of recommending an example of a great black and white only artwork combined with some really great story arcs and characters, I'd have to say 'Cerebus' is still a leading example. It was the first TPB I read and it still stands out for me from what I've read; Before Dave Sims got perhaps a bit too into spouting his own (arguably mysogynistic) political ideologies anyway. A must read if you have the chance. The manga ones I used to read ages ago, so I can't remember the names of most of them, but yeah it's always the Japanese ones that ring true for me...the others seem like poor copies that don't really have anything to add.

Interesting to talk about this stuff.

[gangstershit]

Monkeybread- I'm going to warm up the tones, but for the sake of argument I should have compared my intentions to sepia ink. It's actually my favorite traditional media. It shifts tone and temperature a little, but mostly pivots around a straight up dark red.

Heres an example from a couple years ago


Scorpion-Your right about the lack of focus on writing going on in here. After I'm done with finding a finished look for page 1 I'll post the rest of my layout. And focus on completing my script and a more fleshed out synopsis for the series as a whole. Right now I'm putting look, feel and an economic workflow on priority. As a prototype if you will. Because I'm still at that stage.

[Amit Dutta]

Aha...yeah that's much better. You weren't too far off with the hue then, but you just need to get more of a value range in there and work up your form definition a bit more. The colour accents are more saturated in that piece as well which is a nicer contrast than the pale blue. Sweet keen to see what comes up.

[Amit Dutta]

Started my day job as a cubicle commando again....sigh. Less time to work on stuff but thought I'd post this to keep things ticking a little. I managed to do a rather crappy sketch on the train. I don't know if this fits as one of my tribe members but I consider it a first test of many.

[Amit Dutta]

Another style test. I know this is very very Toppi. Toppi for me has become one of those artists whose work gels so well with where I wanted to go but didn't really realise until I saw it. It only happens occasionally. Most times you appreciate awesome artists from a general admiration of their skill and overall awesomeness sense, but it is only occasionally that you see work that you feel deep down that that's what you have been looking for and heading towards the whole time ih your own work, except you didn't know it. I guess that's where the strong influences come into play. I've never really had an artist whose work really affected me in this way except maybe with Moebius and Mullins. Winslow Homer and some of Zdislaw Brzinski's stuff also has that feel for me.

I will try and bring more of my own design sense into future tests (well at least in terms of theme hopefully) but his approach is so awesome and it fits perfectly with my own way of working that I find it hard not to ape. Well first ape, then innovate....that's the goal anyway.

[Amit Dutta]

*nudge